


i'll surrender up my heart and swap it for yours

by thotsandfeelings



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Series, like fluffy fluff fit for a newfoundland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thotsandfeelings/pseuds/thotsandfeelings
Summary: "I should've known you’d take this over, too.”
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 21
Kudos: 119





	i'll surrender up my heart and swap it for yours

“How is your skin so soft?” Donna whispers. “You use a 5-in-1 shampoo/body wash combo and your skin is softer than mine after a 4 step routine.”

Josh chuckles behind her and wraps his arm tighter around her waist. “Your skin is soft,” he argues. 

“Not like yours,” she mumbles, her fingers rubbing his forearm. 

She loves nights like this. Nights where the stars align and they’re both home at a decent hour and they can just _be_. There are takeout containers on the coffee table in front of them and a baseball game she stopped paying attention to the second Josh pulled her down in front of him on the couch playing on the TV. She sighs happily and closes her eyes, cherishing this sweet moment with him.

Josh hums and leans his face into her hair. “You always smell good, though.” He kisses her neck. “Even after working out.” 

“Scented baby wipes,” she replies plainly, her thumb still rubbing his skin rhythmically. 

“No,” he murmurs. “It’s just you.” He nuzzles the back of her neck and inhales deeply. “Think it’s the pheromones. I’ve always been hyper aware of you.”

She smiles and runs her hand up to thread her fingers through his. “Yeah?”

He nods against her. “Even during that unmentionable period of time when we weren’t talking.” She squeezes his hand. “There were times when we’d roll into a hotel you guys had just left and I swear it was like you were right next to me.”

Donna brings their clasped hands up to her mouth and kisses the back of his before tucking them under her chin and settling further back into him. 

“I’m next to you now,” she says softly and she feels him press another kiss to the back of her head. 

“That’s all I care about,” he murmurs. She hums and presses her ass against him suggestively and his arm flexes in her hold. “Unless you’re on top of or under me. I care about that too.”

She giggles and turns over, wiggling until she’s more or less underneath him, and she pulls him down so she can kiss him. He keeps it sweet and mostly chaste before pulling back so he can look at her. She frames his face with her hands and coaxes a smile from him with her thumbs. 

“Hey, Josh?”

“Hey, what?” he says playfully. 

She pokes his dimples and her stomach swoops again, butterflies erupting and stealing her breath away. “I’m really happy,” she whispers and his eyes turn soft. She smiles at him, a little embarrassed, but mostly just insanely in love with him. “I never thought I could be this happy.”

He whispers her name and she bites her lip. She isn’t sure why she’s so nervous. They’ve been living together for almost a year and he tells her he loves her every day. Must be a force of habit. She’s always waited for the other shoe to drop in relationships. 

“Donna, you have no idea how happy you make me. I’m talkin’ like, nuclear levels of dopamine anytime I see you.”

She chuffs against him and sniffs as she looks up at him, her eyes starting to shine with unshed tears. 

“I’m a better Chief of Staff because of you. A better boss, a better man.” Josh leans back and pulls her up with him. “And I’ve loved you for a _ridiculous_ amount of time. The only thing I’ve loved longer than you are the New York Mets and my mother.”

Donna laughs again and grabs onto his arm as he palms her thigh. She says his name shyly and looks away from him, but he follows her eyes and catches her gaze again. 

“You’re just a part of me now, you know? It’s like word association at this point. Someone says ‘Josh’ and instantly thinks ‘Donna’.” He smiles and squeezes her thigh again. “Like a little invisible string keeps you tied to me forever.” He looks down and links their pinkies and she holds on tight as she listens to him. “And you could absolutely _wreck_ me, but that string would still be there. It’s unbreakable.”

Donna’s heart is about 5 times too big for her chest and beating like a drum against her ribs as she looks at him. He has a small smile on his face and he looks so soft with his messy hair and faded Bartlet for America shirt. He moves to cradle her face in his hands, affectionately caressing her cheeks with his thumbs, and her heart tries to jump out of her chest and into his. 

“I love you,” she murmurs. One of his hands drops from her face, but he pulls her in to kiss her and shifts on the couch beside her. He laughs a little against her lips and shakes his head, and Donna pulls away from him, a grin on her face. “What’s funny?”

“I just– I should've known you’d take this over, too.” Her eyebrows furrow and he grabs her hand in his. “I was planning a whole thing. It’s fine.” He looks at her, like he knows something she doesn’t. 

“Josh, what—“ she cuts off when he squeezes her hand and she feels something drop into hers. She opens her palm and her jaw drops open. 

He murmurs her name and her eyes somehow get even wider as she stares down at her hand, slightly shaking now. She hears him take a slow, steadying breath and he squeezes her thigh. “Marry me.”

Donna’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline and she looks up at him. She smiles slowly, her jaw still open as she looks back down at the most beautiful ring she’s ever seen in her life.”

“Josh,” she says, her voice quiet. She has full-on tears in her eyes now, and she reaches out and puts her other hand on his shoulder, trying to brace herself. “You’ve had a ring in your pocket all night?”

He grins. “Donna, I’ve had this ring in my pocket for months. And in my safe for about 5 years before that.”

Her eyes squint in confusion as she does the math in her head. “But that was around re-election for President Bartlet—“

“Inauguration, to be exact.” 

She shakes her head, disbelieving. “When did you have time to buy a ring on inauguration day?”

“Well,” he rolls his head around. “I didn’t buy it that day.”

“When did you buy it?”

“It’s actually a hand-me-down,” he says softly. “The diamond at least. I updated the setting.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says, her voice still in awe when she looks back down at her palm. She takes her hand off his shoulder so she can pick it up and inspect it more carefully. It’s a radiant cut in a pave setting on a platinum band also laced with smaller diamonds. She tries not to think about how many carats it is. It's _huge_.

“It was my mom’s.”

Donna closes her eyes and shakes her head again as the tears finally spill over. “Josh,” she says, laughter coating her words, “you’re killing me here.”

“She gave it to me that night at the sixth ball. I told her how I had to throw snowballs at your window to get you there in the first place and after she saw us dancing, she said ‘Joshua, don’t be a _schlimazel’_ and she handed me a little black box.” He shrugs. “We weren’t ready then, but I still knew, or at least started to actually hope, that she was right and I’d give it to you eventually.” He smiles at her fondly and brushes her hair behind her shoulder. “So, y’know, if you say no, I gotta head to a pawn shop.”

She laughs a little breathlessly and her eyes are still shining when she looks back up at him. “Put it on me,” she murmurs and his grin grows wider as he does as she asks. The ring glows in the soft light of the TV and Donna looks back up to him and fists his shirt. 

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

She nods, still laughing a little incredulously. “ _Yes_ , Josh. I’m saying yes.”

He tackles her back onto the couch, kissing her sloppily as she wraps her arms around him. 

“I love you,” he murmurs over and over, his cheeks tight from his wide smile and she kisses him again, shifting so he’s in between her thighs. He trails across her cheek, kissing the wetness from her tears away. 

“You were planning a thing?” she asks, wrapping her calf around his and slipping her fingers up the back of his shirt. 

“This was better.”

“What were you planning?”

“It was a whole nostalgia thing. I’m better off the cuff anyway.”

She grins and grabs his face so she can kiss him again. “I can’t believe you’ve just been walking around here with a ring in your pocket and I didn’t notice.”

“I’m stealthy, Donnatella. I have to keep secrets a little more catastrophic than this.” He squeezes her hip. 

She relaxes underneath him and moves her hand so it’s in front of her face. She twists it back and forth, her stomach doing cartwheels as the shiny diamond glints back at her. 

“I get what you mean about nuclear levels of dopamine,” she says and he kisses her sweetly before making his way to her neck. She threads her fingers through his hair and turns her head so he has better access. She blinks when she sees the television and flexes her fingers. “Hey, the Mets won.”

“What?!” he shouts and springs away from her neck to look at the TV. “Oh my God.” He looks back down at her, his eyes comically wide. “They just made the playoffs.”

“Josh,” she says and grabs his face again. “Focus.”

“You don’t understand, this is _the_ sign, Donna. If anyone ever questions us, just tell them our love was powerful enough to make the New York Mets make the playoffs.”

She rolls her eyes. This is the man she's choosing to marry. “We’re _engaged._ You just put a ring on my finger, Josh. We get to have _fiancé_ sex, I need you to pull it together.”

He grins down at her and kisses the side of her mouth before grabbing her left hand and lacing his fingers with hers, the slim band of the ring cool against his skin. 

“What’s so special about fiancé sex?” he asks, a smirk on his mouth as he leans into her suggestively. 

She sneaks her free hand into the collar of his shirt, scratching the back of his neck to his shoulder. “Well, remember last week when you were just my boyfriend and I said we couldn’t use the thing you asked about?”

“Yeah,” he says expectantly, his smile growing. 

“Fiancé sex includes that thing.”

His eyes spark and she scratches him a little harder, making him shiver, and he closes his eyes when she grinds up into him. Donna leans forward and tugs his earlobe into her mouth before she moves her hand to slip into the hem of his shirt and run her fingers along his side and stomach instead. He convulses when she tickles the spot high up on his side, and he peels himself away from her to pull her up and drag her to the bedroom. 

“I should’ve proposed last week,” he says as he shucks his shirt and reaches for her waist. She laughs and Josh forces himself to slow down and take his time to memorize this moment. He’s one step closer to finalizing forever with her, he wants to remember it. 

He lets her lead and she keeps eye contact as she walks him back to sit him on the bed. She steps between his legs and he smiles when she crosses her hands over his mouth so she can admire the ring again. 

“This was really your mom’s?” she asks and Josh nods against her and grabs her wrists so he can talk. 

“She still wears the wedding band from dad, but the diamond has been passed down for generations.”

“Do I even wanna know how much my finger is worth right now?”

He chuckles and kisses her palm before leaning back completely. “Probably not. The value went up with the new setting. Leo hooked me up with his guy at Harry Winston a few years ago.”

“Leo knew?”

“I didn’t tell him what the piece of jewelry was or who it was for. No one knew besides my mom.”

She sighs heavily and slides her hands around him, rubbing his shoulders when he lays his head against her chest. They stay that way for a long moment, just holding each other, and Donna leans down to rest her cheek against his hair as she hugs him tight. Josh grabs the back of her thighs, pulling her to straddle his lap and he runs his hands up and down her back. 

“You were always extra twitchy and made me leave the room when you’d open your safe,” she mumbles into his neck. “I thought you were hiding some super secret FBI stuff in there.”

He chuckles and pulls back so he can look at her. “Nope. Just an engagement ring and some family documents that my mom didn’t want to take to Florida.”

Donna continues rubbing his shoulders and his chest. “If I would’ve found it, I would’ve thought it was for—“

“I know,” he says, interrupting her. “But I had it made specifically for _you_ , Donna,” he says, grabbing her hand. “I had to be sneaky. My mom is actually the one who got your ring size.”

“When?” she asks incredulously. 

Josh smirks and shrugs his shoulder. “She has her ways.”

She stares at the ring again. It really is exactly what she’d pick out for herself. “You know, for someone with normally pretty mediocre taste, you’ve really outdone yourself, Joshua.”

"Well, you can thank however-many-greats grandfather for the diamond," he preens and leans in to kiss her, not letting up as she wraps her arms around his neck. She holds him tightly as he continues to kiss her and she exhales heavily when his hands sneak up to cup her breasts. “I don’t wanna jinx it, Donna,” he says, grinding up into her and panting a little, “but I’m pretty sure you’re about to get the best sex of your life tonight.”

She laughs openly at that and tightens her grip around him. “You think you can top the second night of Hanukkah from last year?”

Josh hums and nips at her neck. “You know I love a challenge.” Donna grinds on top of him and he grunts, his fingers digging into her skin before he leans forward again to attack her neck. “God,” he says and inhales. “You smell so fucking good.”

Donna chuckles and grinds against him again as her fingers thread through his hair. “Must be the pheromones.”

Josh wraps his arm right around her waist and flips them over so he’s hovering above her. She pulls her shirt off and Josh goes for her neck again, sucking a mark into her skin. “Whatever it is,” he murmurs, kissing up her jaw, “it’s like it was _made_ for me. I’m like a pathetic little moth drawn to a flame.”

She giggles and grabs his face in her hands, her eyes bright. “Hey, Josh?”

He smirks and bumps her nose with his, playing along. “Hey, what?”

She pokes at his dimples with her thumbs. “I’m even happier than I was earlier,” she murmurs and kisses him softly. “And I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Better get used to it, babe,” he whispers and pulls his shirt off before laying on top of her completely. “‘Cause I plan on making you say that for the rest of your life.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the ring I was picturing (just platinum, not white gold and a little bigger): https://www.jamesallen.com/diamond-rings/radiant-cut-engagement-rings/2.01-carat-pave-engagement-ring-1951335?cur=USD&cq_src=google_ads&cq_cmp=1347541126&cq_con=57942594376&cq_term=&cq_med=pla&cq_plac=&cq_net=g&cq_pos=&cq_plt=gp&gclid=CjwKCAiAv4n9BRA9EiwA30WND4NVtN6FQAwbtAN_Pje7io1oSvR_xHaJbzjbTYe10FCwVaRwgapNghoCyr4QAvD_BwE
> 
> I don't know why I always picture Josh's family to come from old Connecticut elite money, but *shrugs* and Leo buying his (then) wife that choker from Harry Winston early in season 1 was enough of an excuse for the Josh in my head to follow suit :)


End file.
